Well Below the Surface

In Heart

 It’s not blood, but something else that grafts you in

Something not so deep, yet so deep it defies veins

With missteps and misunderstandings and tears

We carved out a path with words and prayers

With perfect rhythm and revelation and laughter

We walk it now, so familiar we can be blindfolded

We were whole in our circle of DNA, yet somehow

With you, we see we were missing chromosomes all along

Know that we couldn’t do this without you, wouldn’t want to

There are pages in this story only you can write and sing

Know that we need you in this; no one else can do it

The most beautiful melodies are better with harmony

There are pauses and spaces and quiet moments

This is where your heart beats to keep ours alive

You chose us, we are blessed, we are grateful

With one you get all, that is the nature of clan

Never in law, but in heart is where you live, you breathe

Thank you.

No Reason

The Rewrite

I knew myself once, certainty was mine

There was clarity, the spelling was correct

The staples evenly placed in my binding

I loved you for a reason, life or death in the balance

I knew it was true, I was sure.
I approved of me, in the daylight, in the awake

Night was my revelation, my costume unzipped

As my heart shifting with time, slid around in my chest

My folded hands did their best to stop the bleeding internal

My skin clothed my bones in all the same different ways.

But my mind, my mind, my mind never stopped

Never stopped fighting me, hoping I was wrong, please be wrong

Every shape changing, lines crossing, meanings unraveling

My story untelling itself before my eyes

Who rewrites their beginnings? 

We do, when we learn to trust the author

So, pen in hand I start again to ink the me I am

On these freshly ironed pages, delicate but iron still

You see the foundation is strong, yet cracked in places

Where life can seep through and grow and regrow
Splintering, severing the bindings

Changing the pulse, the beat, the very rhythm

Of my breathing so that I love for no reason

Love is reason enough, I am sure.

Failure is Giving Up

Try

Take a chance and bend from the waist

To see you in that water a perfect misshapen shape

Let go with everything you have to give

A gift is useless left in ribbons and bows

Get dirty and bloody, never stopping 

Just because the rocks beneath are sharp

Take yourself seriously, less and less

So a smile that flirts with your lips

Will reach your eyes and change your world

Your mind needs a face lift, so up with it

Paint yourself with secrets and dreams

Light the candle and burn the bundle of fear

It’s heavy in your chest, but powerless when you believe

To see you in the sky reflecting heaven’s face

Take a chance and stand up 

Tick Tock

TIME

Sixty seconds, one minute

My hands can’t hold the time

It takes for those two hands

To tick away another moment

Another breath I can’t get back

Will you promise me what you can’t see?

Will you believe in me what you can’t be?

Will you trust in me what you can’t speak?

Fog is creeping over my mind

But I fight it while I love it

Because the ocean needs a partner

And you with your blurry notes

Can make me dance like no one else

Will you promise me what you can’t see?

Will you believe in me what you can’t be?

Will you trust in me what you can’t speak?

One hour, sixty minutes

I’ll hold the door, hold it open for you

Press my foot into that small space

Where everything escapes and I kick myself

For not using all of me to block the tide

  

Will you promise me what you can’t see?

Will you believe in me what you can’t be?

Will you trust in me what you can’t speak?

Time to Unveil

Becoming

I had a sense of something good, I knew it was good

Fleeting, bright and small, but I understood

I chased myself through the night, the darkest night

Fearless I stood, poised and ready to fight

I looked in a mirror to find the truth, to know the truth

But seeing isn't knowing, even when you have the proof

I slept and woke inside my dream, free within my dream

I called forth the unknown, and saw nothing is as it seems

My two hands held the secret, and I held them closed in secret

The answer is simple, is easy, is you cannot keep it

In a moment I saw a future dressed in sun, life-giving sun

I opened my mind and healed all that had been done

The power is in knowing what you can’t see, when you can’t see

The miracle is what is in front of you doesn't set you free

Open wide your mouth to receive, your life to receive

Close your throat when it disagrees, your heart believes

Within that space between then and now, finally it is now

You see the truth in the ashes of the sacred cow

You are not a broken creature of fear, there is nothing to fear

Within you is the divine, the heaven song pressing near

I am you and you are me, together we dance; it’s okay to dance

Destiny wielded its sword; we are not a game of chance

Don’t fear the flame burning bright, rising higher, ever higher

We hold the oil, wick and lamp; we are the fire

We will bring out the truth refusing the lie, never believing the lie

We will fall down and drunkenly laugh, never ceasing to try

It is you; it is me, spirit perfect in our skin and bones, strong happy bones

We will roam the earth and soar the sky always in joy, never alone.

Fun House

Reflection

I don’t give a damn, I don’t

Yes I do, I’m lying to you

I see through a glass

Darkly I see

But don’t you see I need

You to be on your knees

I’ve been too small, forever

To see myself beyond the horizon

Of your shoulders, your brow

I want to believe I can be

Alone in this crowd of hallways

And still be true, to me not you

I can’t be unseen mirror to mirror

My flesh needs its own portrait

More than most but still less

Than the best meant for me

Hold my heart not my heels

I have hammers to wield

Free my hands from this grasp

Thundering gods raise these walls

And we fall step by step one more step

But my fight is my war, my own

I don’t fear what may or may not be

I hurl stones in the sea

I don’t give a damn, I don’t

Yes I do, I’m lying to you

I see through a glass

Darkly I see

14th

Valentine 

With breathless, hopeless hope

I opened up a ribbon wrapped tin

Seeing within my own heart

Coiled in pieces like so many chocolates

You’ve torn open with your teeth

To see what flavor I am inside

Sideways blown even as I stand

Because sometimes it’s words on a page

So the rage doesn’t melt the candle

I hold so tightly in my bare hands

I need the light to burn on and on

Pain doesn’t mean I’m passing

Sing you say, sing me to sleep

But trust me I can’t keep being

The resting place for your destiny

The reason you soft shoe through it all

Hanging diamonds from excuses

A whispered noose my fingertips can’t break

Broken edges of thorny stems and petals

Sharp, twisted metal filling vases

The perfume of rosy death staining my lungs

I let go of these bundles and boxes of satin

Loving myself enough to say that now

I need nothing from you, February love

Everything is Bigger

North

She is mighty

Bought and sold a man’s folly

Wounded and torn frozen in time

Ancient her bones forever carry

Oh, she is mighty

She is mighty

Her hair perfumed with flowers

Mountains and streams are her babies

She sings to them gently

Oh, she is mighty

She is mighty

Wearing white, bride perfect

Dressed up to be plundered

Glittering in her veins

Oh, she is mighty

She is mighty

Holding man under heaven

Her waters ebb and flow forever

Every day a relic newly born

Oh, she is mighty

She is mighty

Golden stars are her freedom

Circling the moments in her orbit

Her history carved by their hands

Oh, she is mighty

She is mighty

Grandeur and splendor revealed

Her backbone unbroken, unyielding

She still keeps a thousand secrets

Oh, she is mighty

Grieving

Upon A Death

restless shards of diamond pain

tears crash unrelenting against the shore

she breathes summer inside honey warm

I linger here lost in this dizzy circle

happy evaporated last night

she left to dance with someone else

rewind second chance once more

the answer is no never again

peace pretends to see me

only to be awakened to nothing

she has wings to take her home

I am tossed grounded to the earth

close my eyes the ocean will hold me

water embracing filling in the spaces

she is able to be what never could be

freedom sweet laughing forever young

Living

Enough

He’s tired lines crayon drawn deep

One arm lifts securing metal clip to button

Blinking against the sun that never stays long enough

He fights the rain, the wind, the night, every day

A deep breath in and again inside he doubts

He is enough

He’s bowed slightly at back and knee

Time ticking is hard and heavy on the flesh

Working is living so life goes on and on with her

There’s much to be done and doing is his job

A deep breath in and again inside he doubts

He is enough

She’s dusty white her hair, her face

Rising up to meet the first kiss of light

Day in day out night in night out with him

Her life is this doing and there is much to be done

A deep breath in and again inside she knows

He is enough

She’s strong in those thinning spaces

Weathering the dysfunction of earth and sky

Some days are silent with nothing spoken

No whisper of skin to unravel the knot

A deep breath in and again inside she knows

He is enough

Pale moons over parchment fields

Cooling the brow of upheaved earth

A pattern knitted in the marrow of bone

Love released in duty and sacrifice

A deep breath in and again inside they know

They are enough

Sunrise to sunset and everything between

The rise and fall of every heavy step

A percussion pressed into the earth forever

A history written of blood and wood and iron

A deep breath in and again inside we know

We are enough

Celebrate

Always

I was wide open in black space and time

Torn apart with words and hands

Whole still for I fight for you always

Kicking and screaming peace in your ear

Downy soft brush of hands on your face

Dance sister, dance daughter, dance mother

Woman dance

I was lifted up in fire blown through with devil’s breath

Stinging life slapping hard against my chest

I stood from bronze to gold you against my back

Ever my blackbird flying from the night

Dove now alight on my diamond embrace

Dance sister, dance daughter, dance mother

Woman dance

I murdered the emptiness crowding choking

Coarse and hollow the voices that followed

Blighting the yellow brick river sown for you always

I scarred my drum beating the way for you

Shaking every tree your bed was made soft

Dance sister, dance daughter, dance mother

Woman dance

I was free in a breeze of giddy delight

My words spoken aloud a trumpet blast

I turned corners sweeping clean the dark

My heartbeat tied to you heaven and earth

I broke chains with my song, my fists unfurled

Dance sister, dance daughter, dance mother

Woman dance